The best part of any rap record – the beat, the production – is missing from Larry Drew’s freestyle from his 21st birthday celebration.

This should surprise none of us, because Drew was missing most of the key elements – shooting, passing accuracy, decision-making – during his last masquerade: as an ACC point guard.

Since Drew decided to quit the North Carolina basketball team in the first week of February, the Tar Heels have won eight of nine games and claimed the conference championship over rival Duke. The player who replaced him as a starter, freshman Kendall Marshall, has averaged 9.9 points and 8.2 assists with Drew out of the way.

Drew had been silent since he departed without warning, without even a word to his coach, Roy Williams.

His first public words, then, came in rhyme:

• “The past three years, I can’t let loose. I’m not making all of the moves that I want to.”

• “They tried to tell me just to play my role, but who’s going to stick to a script that’s got typos?”

• “Everything that I’m hearing is untrue. The media, they’ll talk, but they’ll never confront you.”

• “What I learned is success is a process, and so I progressed.”

His words do give one pause. Not making all of the moves he wants? There is no player in any college program with more freedom than the North Carolina point guard. The media won't confront him? They can't find him. Quitting is progress?

In the preamble to his rap, he mentioned that people asked him “where my head was at” in deciding to transfer from North Carolina. The rap follows soon after that declaration, so presumably this is his response to the question.

It would have been interesting to see if he could have worked “addition by subtraction” into a rhyme, but he seems to bring the same level of skill to the stage as to the basketball floor.